You people probably don't know it, but you have the best advertised nut in the United States that you are working with, black walnuts. There are very few people in the United States that don't know what a black walnut kernel is, or a black walnut. In fact, I would say that 75 per cent of them at some time or other have gathered black walnuts, have hulled them. You know those pretty stained hands you have, and I can remember back in those days when I was a kid when I used to get those hands of mine just so brown and black from the hulling of black walnuts that my mother would almost want to turn me over her knee and spank me. But when wintertime came I always had a bunch of black walnuts that we could sit down and crack and put in those cookies or in that fudge.
I have talked to a good many of you people here, and I have a prepared speech, but I am going to ramble a little bit and I am going to ask you to ask me questions, because I found out that I don't know so many things, or the speech that I was going to make to you might not be as interesting as your asking me questions. I do want to say a few things, and I will go through quickly.
The first is the marketing of black walnuts in the shell. We find in the marketing of any product that there is a tremendous amount of waste due to poor sacking, due to a little dishonesty on the part of the people who are selling merchandise. You know, if there is a brick in a bag, the brick weighs a pound, that costs the man who buys the black walnuts money. In other words, out of that pound of brick he intended to get a small quantity of meats to sell, so his cost immediately goes up. You'd be surprised at how many bricks and how much iron there is in black walnuts and pecans! It's universal throughout the United States. There is a lot of chiseling that goes on. Your bags should be good. Black walnuts must be held for some time before they are processed, and one black walnut bag used one year can't be used another. If you can get by with one year's use of a bag to hold a hundred pounds, or whatever is put in it, of black walnuts, you are very fortunate. Usually they break out before the year is over, and that causes waste. So start out with a decent bag.